*To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different, it takes something that’s really new and really captures people’s imagination and the Macintosh, of all the machines I’ve ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.”
–Microsoft founder Bill Gates, 1984
*If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth–and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”
–Steve Jobs, 1996.
Soon the great Silicon Valley soap opera will come full circle. Not since Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously interviewed Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates as a possible suitor during the “Macintosh Dating Game” back in 1984 have the two men appeared in a joint bill. And in a few moments, the two will share a stage tonight for the first time in more than 20 years for what promises to be a historic discussion. Live coverage to follow !
7:15 p.m PDT:
Tonight’s conversation is prefaced by a short film of previous Gates/Jobs appearances. First up: The Macintosh Dating game, circa 1984. (Ah, they looked so much younger then!)
And finally Gates and Jobs joking together at D in 2005.
7:20 p.m.:
Gates and Jobs onstage.
Walt recognizes the other two bachelors from the “Macintosh Dating Game”: Mitch Kapor and Fred Gibbons, who are both in the audience.
What have each of you contributed to the computer industry? Jobs: Bill built the first software company in the industry, and that was huge. Bill was really focused on software. There are a lot of other things you could say, but that’s the highest bit.
Gates: First, I’d like to clarify, I am not Fake Steve Jobs.
7:30 p.m.:
Gates continues: Apple really pursued the dream of building products that we want to use ourselves. He always seems to figure out where the next industry movement will be. The industry has benefited tremendously from his work.
Walt recalls the Apple II, notes that it broadened the base of who could use computers. He mentions an ad that said “thousands of people have used the Macintosh computer.” Jobs interjects: “We had some very strange ads back then.”
7:35 p.m.:
Walt: Some people don’t know that there was actually some Microsoft software in that Apple II computer. Gates begins to tell the story. Jobs interjects again: “Let me tell this story.” Wozniak develops OS that’s fixed point and not floating point. We’re begging him to make it floating point, and he never did it. And so Microsoft had this very good floating point Basic, so we went with it.
Gates: We really bet our future on the Macintosh being successful. So we were working together.
Jobs: Remember Microsoft wasn’t in the applications business, so this was really a big bet for them.
Gates: What was the next entry point in the industry? We’d made the bet that it would be graphics, and we went with the Mac. The original Mac OS was 14K.
Jobs: It was bigger than that–20 K
Jobs: Apple did the Mac itself, but we got Bill and his team to write the applications.
7:40 p.m.Kara:
Bill, what did you think would happen after the disasters at Apple and Steve left? Gates: We worried that Apple wasn’t differentiating itself from the other platforms–Windows and DOS. After the 512K Mac debuted, the product line just didn’t evolve the way it needed to. Certainly not the way it would have if Steve had been there. I was calling Gil Amelio on weekends and trying to get things moving. And then one day, Steve called me and said, ‘Don’t worry about those Amelio negotiations anymore.’
Walt notes Jobs’ statement in the 1997 video about competition with Microsoft being destructive. If the game was a zero-sum game where if Apple wanted to win, Microsoft had to lose, then Apple was going to lose. But Apple didn’t have to beat Microsoft. It had to remember what Apple was. Microsoft was the biggest software developer around, and Apple was weak. So I called Bill up.
7:45 p.m.:
Jobs: The developer relationship between Microsoft and Apple is one of the best we have.
Ah, the obligatory “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” reference.
Jobs: PC guy is what makes it all work, actually.
Gates: PC guy’s mother loves him.
How does Apple view Microsoft? Jobs recycles his “Apple is about beautiful software in a beautiful box” comments from the earlier session today. Notes that Apple is fundamentally a software company, as is Microsoft.
7:50 p.m.:
Alan Kay once said, “People that love software want to build their own hardware.” Jobs: Outside of Windows on PCs, it’s hard to see other examples of software and hardware being decoupled and working well together.
Walt to Jobs: Was there something you might have done differently where you could have had a bigger market share for the Mac. Is there something you regret?
Jobs: There are a lot of things I could have done better the first time. You’ve got to let go of that stuff. One of the first things I did when I came back to Apple was give the Apple museum to Stanford. We need to go invent tomorrow, not worry about yesterday.”
7:55 p.m.:
Kara: How do you view the technology landscape right now?
Jobs: I think there is some really exciting next generation stuff being built right now.
Gates: It’s an exciting period. We’ll look back on these years as one of the great periods of invention.
Walt: You’re the guys that represent the rich client, the big operating system, but there’s the notion these days that all that is migrating to the cloud. In five years, will the PC still be the lynchpin of all this stuff?
Gates: Remember the single-function computer? Larry Ellison’s network computer? As you look at the device that’s connecting to the TV set of the car, but when you come to the full screen ! in a living room ! we’re nowhere near leaving that.
8 p.m.:Jobs:
Here’s an example. The Google Maps app we wrote for the iPhone is way better than Google Maps itself. Why? Because you’re running the app locally. You can do so much more with a rich client than you can with a browser. At the same time, rich clients are improving and their cost is declining. The marriage of these services with a powerful client is a very powerful marriage.
8:05 p.m.:
What devices you might carry around five years from now?
Gates: I think you’ll have a number of devices. A tablet and then another smaller one that you can carry around in your pocket. Those are natural form factors.
Jobs: The PC has been very resilient. Its death has been predicted many times. But the Internet came around and invigorated it. And then it plateaued again. And then digital media came around and invigorated it again. And so I think the PC is going to continue to be with us. But then there’s an explosion in post-PC devices. There’s a category of devices that aren’t general purpose. They’re more focused and that category is going to continue to be very innovative.
What are the core applications of these portable devices? Gates says we’ll have a broad range of choice, but one that will be limited by their size. He notes that you still can’t reasonably edit your homework on a cellphone screen.
Jobs says he doesn’t know what will be on these devices. Why? “Because 5 years ago, I never thought there would be maps on them. But now there are.”
8:10 p.m.:
What areas of the Internet do you find exciting.
[long pause]
Jobs: There are zillion interesting things going on on the Internet. A lot surrounding entertainment, but a lot about figuring out how to navigate life more efficiently.
8:15 p.m.:
Do you worry about not being as nimble as some of these new companies coming up?
Gates: You always want to be in a position to benefit from new innovations.
Jobs: We’re not trying to do a lot of this stuff, so we partner with people. We don’t know how to do search, so we find a partner. It’s really hard for one company to do everything.
Jobs: People want to enjoy entertainment when they want it, how they want it, on the device they want it on. And if you’re a content company, that’s a great thing. But the transitions are hard sometimes.
8:20 p.m.:
Walt asks about the future of the OS and the user interface. Will we see a new paradigm? Gates posits that we’re near to seeing some big advances in 3D and multi-touch. 3D positional devices. Software can be vision, and that can be done inexpensively and pervasively.
Walt presses on: My laptop today is very similar to the laptop I had 10 years ago.
8:30 p.m.:
What’s the greatest misunderstanding in your relationship?
Jobs: We’ve kept our marriage secret so far.
Gates: I don’t think we have anything to complain about. I miss some people who’ve left the industry. It’s nice to have someone like Steve around.
Jobs: When Bill and I first entered the industry, we were the youngest guys in the room, and now we’re the oldest. I tend to think of things in terms of either Dylan or Beatles songs. And there’s that one line in that Beatles song, “You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead,” and I think that applies here.”
And after that tender moment, we’re on to the Q&A !
Q.: At what point is there too much diversity in tech? Our lives are often made better by standards, but it seems diversity is near to reaching a point where the convergence we’d like is no longer possible.
Jobs: I think Bill and I would agree we could get it down to 2 ! It’s hard to limit imagination.
Gates: I think the market is very good at limiting !
8:35 p.m.:
Q.: What about your legacies? If you had to choose one, what would it be? Steve Jobs, do you envy Bill Gates’s second act?
Gates: The most important work I’ve had a chance to be involved in has been with the PC. That’s my life’s work. I’m lucky that I’ve been able to apply the skills and resources I developed through those experience in other areas.
8:40 p.m.:
Q.: Advice for the upcoming entrpreneur?
Gates: The idea of being at the forefront and increasing in size has been one of our greatest challenges. Our business is really about the passion.
Jobs: If you don’t love it, you’re going to fail. You’ve got to love it and you’ve got to have passion. And you’ve got to be a great talent scout, you can only build a great organization around great people.
Q: What do you wish you’d learned from each other early on?
Gates: I admire Steve’s taste. And that’s not a joke.
Jobs: If Apple could have had a bit of Microsoft’s knack for partnerships early on we would have been better for it.
Photos:
Video:
http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/452319854
*PS: Quoted from d5.allthingsd.com